bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Paul has just listed what love does not do, and verse 7 turns to four things love does, each stretched to "all things." Commentators ask how far that "all" reaches: is love simply gullible, or do these four clauses give a believer strength to carry through real evil?
The turn from negative to positive
The verse changes direction. Every clause before it hangs on the word "not." Every clause here hangs on the word "all."
The negative qualities show the patient endurance of love. Notice the word 'not'. The positive ones show love in action, and that action leaves nothing out. Notice the word 'all'.
One writer sees these last four as the supply that keeps a believer standing where the world is against him: "The last four qualities set forth the positive energy of love, whereby its possessor is sustained in the middle of a hostile world."
Bears all things
The first clause sets love against how little we put up with before we react.
Love "bears all things". Our natural self can bear very little without showing resentment. Love can bear all things, and often in silence.
The word also means to cover. That shapes what love does with what it knows about others.
Love bears, or covers, all things. Of course it never approves of wrong. But it takes no pleasure in spreading news of what other people have done wrong.
Believes all things
Believing all things is the opposite of a suspicious mind. One writer traces it back to the way the Lord Jesus lived among people.
"Believes all things" is not being suspicious. Love is quick to believe. It "hopes all things." It wishes no harm and does not think about evil. Evil tends to depress the soul, but God is above all that... Christ was here in the world with no suspicion in His mind. That is the spirit we should walk in. If you are always suspecting people, who will trust you?
Hopes all things
Hope takes over where belief runs out of evidence. One writer applies it to the reports we hear about other people.
Love is not irritable or resentful. Love believes all things — not the evil things, but the good ones. Where it cannot believe all the good it would like, it at least hopes all things. It hopes the good report is true and the bad one false.
How far "all things" goes
The four "alls" do not mean love believes anything anyone says. Commentators read them as limited by what Paul is writing about.
Love believes all the truth it can find. It hopes that whatever is missing will be supplied in time. Meanwhile it puts up with every lack. Clearly the phrase "all things," repeated four times, must be read within its context. Someone who believed "all things" without limit would end up in a swamp of uncertainty and deception.
Covering sin is not the same as ignoring it: "love does not necessarily expose sins, or gloat over the failure of others. If possible, love will deal with sins privately, so that they do not needlessly become public."
Endures all things
The last clause grows out of the one before it. Where hope dies, staying power dies with it.
Love "endures all things". The flesh, assuming the worst, has no hope, and when hope is gone there is no power to endure. Love hopes all things, and that hope gives strength to endure when opposition and discouragement come.
What love endures includes hostility from outside. The strength for it comes from God, not from a rosy view of people.
So love bears every annoyance. It believes all the good it can. It hopes for everything, even when evil is plain to see right now. It endures all things, whether persecution or suffering, knowing this is what we are here for. Seeing God in Christ lifts the heart above the crushing power of evil, and above suspicion too.
Seen perfectly in one Man
The description is not an ideal without an example. One Man has already lived out every clause.
Everything this wonderful chapter says love does, we have seen fully displayed in the Son of God. He bore all things and endured all. He put up with the weaknesses and failures of His disciples. He endured the hostility of sinners against Himself.
Summary
- Bears — love carries what our natural self cannot carry, often in silence, and takes no pleasure in making another person's failure public.
- Believes — it drops suspicion and believes the good, walking through the world in the spirit Christ Himself showed.
- Hopes — where the good cannot yet be believed, love still hopes the kind report is true and the ugly one false.
- Endures — hope supplies the staying power. Lose hope of good, and endurance under opposition collapses with it.
- All things — the four "alls" do not mean love believes anything, and they never excuse wrongdoing. They were displayed in full in the Son of God, who bore with His disciples and endured the hostility of sinners.